He quaffed the contents of his glass and waved it in the air. An attendant refilled it for him. “I haven’t been to haeling in months.” He sighed. “That’s why Aer is doing this to me.”
The bath turned out to be an open-air pool fed from an aqueduct. I looked into its depth, trying to see the bottom. Rory whooped and jumped in, splashing water on the rest of us.
“Relax,” Bolt said as he walked down the steps into the water. He waded out into the middle of the pool, where the level stopped halfway up his stomach. “It’s only a little over a pace deep.” He shook his head. “You really need to learn how to swim, Willet.”
I half listened to Rory splashing and talking about how he never wanted to leave Cynestol, but I kept the remainder of my thoughts focused on our introduction to the nobility. “What can you tell me about court here in Cynestol?” I asked Bolt.
He poured soap out of a pitcher and proceeded to lather his hair. “The one thing you can count on with Ailleans and their court is change. They become enamored with a new trend and it spreads like brushfire through court and lasts about as long.” He dunked his head into the water. “I can’t really tell you what to expect because the last time I was here was twenty years ago as Pellin’s guard.”
I scrubbed soap through my scalp. “Is what Gael said true?”
He nodded. “Their penchant for marriage and alliance? That seems to be the one constant of court life.” One of his arms came out of the water to point at Rory. “We better keep him close at hand tonight. The women of Cynestol . . . well, you’ll see.”
A moment later, Tressa came storming through one of the arches, waving her arms. “What are you still doing in the bath? Hurry, or we’ll never get you to court on time.” She stood tapping one foot against the clay-tiled floor.
With a shrug, Bolt walked up the steps past her and draped himself with a towel. “Leave your clothes,” he said to us. “If you put them back on, they’ll just make you take another bath.”
“Move!” the woman yelled.
Rory and I exchanged looks. We weren’t moving toward the steps. In fact, both of us had edged toward the farther end of the pool.
“We’ll be along shortly,” I said.
Bolt, wrapped in a towel, tapped her on the shoulder. “What he means is that you’re a woman and they’re unused to being naked in front of women.”
Her eyes widened. “Are they priests?”
“After a fashion,” Bolt said.
She straightened. “Oh, well then, I’ll leave you to guide them back.”
A heartbeat after her shadow disappeared through the archway, I came out of the pool and wrapped a towel around my waist. Rory followed.
“Get used to it,” Bolt said. “Hot-weather customs are very different. Follow me.”
We returned to the chamberlain by the same route we’d taken and came into a room full of attendants surrounding him and another man who might have been his twin.
He came forward and grabbed Bolt by his chin, turning his face left, then right. I winced, waiting for my guard to knock him unconscious, but nothing happened.
“Hmmm. What’s his rank?” he asked the chamberlain.
“Errant,” Lord Unidia said.
He dropped his inspection to turn to the chamberlain with a smile. “Surely?” At Unidia’s nod, he bowed. “My thanks, brother chamberlain. Court brings so few challenges.” He turned back to Bolt. “Rest assured, honored Errant, I shall dress you in a fashion befitting your station.”
Bolt sighed. “And so it begins.”
Two hours and interminable changes of clothes later, the three of us stood just outside the entrance to court, the lilting strains of music drifting toward us along with the scents of strangely spiced food.
“Where’s Lady Gael?” Rory asked.
“It’s customary for women to arrive a few minutes after the men,” Bolt said, “or at least it was the last time I was here.”
A male attendant, broad-shouldered and muscled with chiseled looks even Duke Orlan might have envied, escorted Gael to us. I tried not to stare and failed miserably. Gael wore a floor-length dress that left both arms and one shoulder bare. Despite the short notice, the deep blue folds of her outfit appeared to have been tailored to her.
Exactly to her. A slit up the side exposed most of her left leg, and I had difficulty keeping my gaze above her shoulders.
“She is gorgeous, is she not?” the attendant asked, giving her an appreciative glance.
I didn’t care for the way his gaze lingered on the exposed bits of my betrothed. “Go away,” I said, my voice flat.
He bowed and turned on one heel.
Gael spun, and the shimmering fabric flared, showing both of her legs well above the knees. “Do you like it, Willet? I’m told it’s a bit conservative for Cynestol, but can you imagine the uproar this dress would cause in Bunard?”
“Who was he?” I pointed at the retreating attendant.
Gael’s throaty laugh mocked me. “Just a servant with muscles where his brains should be.”
I retrieved the other letter of introduction, the one to the royal seneschal, and stepped forward to the guards posted at the door. After reading the letter, one of them slipped inside, and a moment later, a gray-haired man with deeply tanned skin stepped through, his eyes lighting as his gaze swept across us.
“Finally, something different,” he said. “A lord and lady of the north and an Errant! Aer is kind.” He pivoted, showing us his back without saying anything more. “Follow me.”
He led us through a broad short hall to an archway where a trumpeter blew a fanfare. In a high, piercing tenor that only someone gifted could manage, the seneschal addressed the court.
“A rare treat is yours. From the farthest reaches of the north, from the city of Bunard in the distant kingdom of Collum, I
